Jacob Lawrence's Message Lies A-Mouldering in the Frame

In pictures, John Brown is a severe man who looks like he should be feared. In this painting, he is the one who looks afraid. He stands forlornly, hands outstretched, and wide eyed. This fourteenth image in Jacob Lawrence’s series, The Legend of John Brown, is different from the rest because Brown appears both alone and unarmed. These traits separate it from all the others and allow Lawrence to get his message across. According to Lawrence, John Brown was a hero, a champion of black people, and he should be honored as such. The artist’s crude artwork and symbolism fail to get his point across though, and what is left is the vigilante we all know.

High school history courses teach students that John Brown was a maniacal vigilante who committed acts of violence in the name of abolition. He believed he was sent by God himself to free the slaves. His 1859 attempted occupation of the federal arsenal at Harper’s Ferry is seldom missing from the chronology of events leading up to the Civil War. Jacob Lawrence originally painted The Legend of John Brown in 1941; the series tells the story of his life through twenty-two captioned images. The caption for number fourteen is: “John Brown collected money from sympathizers and friends to carry out his plans.” The caption and image say two different things though.

Brown stands before a rickety looking table that bears two silver and two copper coins. He is alone in what must be a church, for the Virgin Mary resides on the wall to his right and a crucified Jesus hangs opposite her. Lawrence’s attempt at perspective makes it seem like the church extends fairly far back, and the paintings to either side must be enormous to fill up their entire walls. Such a large space could surely house all of the people sympathetic to his cause, yet Brown is the solitary figure in the print. If he is a hero fighting for a just cause, he should be accompanied by friends and supporters, people sympathetic to the plight of the slaves like him. His company is absent though. Sure, at least four people have come by and chipped in, but that is not enough to capture an arsenal, much less abolish slavery. A painting that should show the makings of a great triumph for a man supported by many instead shows a lonely man on the brink of failure. For those who know the history, it appears that all of John Brown’s followers realized that they could not match his fervor and that they were saner than he. They understood that such small resistance would make little difference and chose not to follow Brown past the point of no return.

Knowing John Brown, closer examination reveals that he is not alone at all. In his mind, Brown had no greater sympathizers than Mary and Jesus, except for God himself. He stands between two of the most powerful symbols in all of Christianity, the Virgin and the Crucifix. To a spiritual person, he needs no other support. However, the symbolism is subverted by the quality of the art. The figures flanking Brown appear to look down as if they are judging him. Their gaze puts him on trial for the crimes he is going to commit. This interpretation would not be possible if Brown was more realistically portrayed, but he looks like he is cowering in fear. He shows the whites of his eyes and holds his hands as if to ask why he deserves such accusation. Lawrence has drawn him hunched over like a dog with its tail tucked, afraid of being beaten. Brown is not illustrated with the posture or conviction of a hero, and the heavenly figures look more like they want to send him to Hell than send him to abolish slavery.

Lawrence’s use of color does little to support his message. The church itself is a dull mix of grays. Mary is clad in blues and red, which are pure colors befitting her character. Jesus is covered only by a red cloth. Both instances of red can be seen as testament to the blood to be shed by the man in black standing in the middle. Perhaps Brown is meant to be wearing the color of the people he fights for, but the archetypical role of a black knight has always been a villain. That is the tone that resonates from the image of a man in black, cowering beneath the son of God and his mother. The color that speaks more volume than any other in the painting though is the deep blue seen out the door behind Brown. Lawrence uses a near identical shade of blue in the final image in this series. Its presence in number fourteen only serves to foreshadow the end, the inevitable hanging of a vigilante brought to justice, and his ultimate failure to complete his mission. With that blue, Lawrence foretells the death of his hero.

It should not be a difficult task for a black American to portray John Brown as a hero. He was one of the most outspoken abolitionists of the antebellum era. However, Lawrence has failed to adequately portray Brown in such a light, and he was doomed to begin with. Cubist artwork is highly open to interpretation, yet it is poorly suited for the depth of symbolism Lawrence hoped to achieve. It was his intention to show John Brown, an incredibly pious man, collecting offerings from other such people within the house of God to fund his quest to end slavery. After this scene is converted into a cubist work, we are left with a mockery of the righteous protagonist and the holy ground he stands upon. Brown was a physically imposing man with a fearsome gaze that put fear in the heart of pro-slavery Americans.

Pictured: The Personification of Pro-Slavery Fear

Lawrence presents us with a weak, old man, unarmed and unaccompanied on his road to failure. His attempt to present the man as more than a vigilante pales in comparison to Robert Hayden’s, whose poem glorifying Brown’s efforts features on the wall next to the series. Hayden’s work proves that the message was ready to be sent, but only through the proper medium with the proper style. Lawrence simply made the wrong choice.

Jacob Lawrence’s fourteenth image in The Legend of John Brown is the point that his message begins to unravel. Cubism is a poor interpreter for sympathizers of John Brown. The proud, righteous man Lawrence wished to show his audience looks like a hobbled, old beggar in the finished work. As such, we are unable to suspend our knowledge of Brown’s true nature, that of the man who took justice into his own hands, who thought he was chosen by God. Actually, Brown was rather prophetic in the end. His last words haunt our nation’s history: “I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land can never be purged away but with blood.” It’s certainly not the mark of a hero to condemn his country to war though.